A distributed computing platform can serve content to clients from a central content provider's server and from local content provider servers. Content can include text, web pages and/or media objects such as, for example, audio, video, images, graphics, advertisements, animation, and read only data. Typically, a web page requested by a client is delivered by the central content provider. The web page includes links or pointers to media objects hosted on local servers. The web page can be in a mark up language, such as HTML, and can include links to local content provider servers, e.g., network paths to a local server identified by a uniform resource locator (URL). One or more levels of domain name service (DNS) servers can determine the client location and identify a local server to deliver the media objects.
Typically, if a plurality of clients on the same communications network request the same content from the central or local content provider servers, then separate requests must be sent from each client to one or more of the content provider servers to retrieve the requested content, and a separate copy of the requested content must be communicated back to each of the requesting clients.